Off Key
by gad-eshu'a
Summary: Sarek sensed there was something missing in Michael's account of Spock. Michael is reluctant to give the truth of everything. No matter how much she trusts Sarek, she can't bring herself to tell him. What would he say; what would he think? Who could understand them without judging her or Spock? They were brought together to be a family but that's not what happened.
1. Chapter 1

" I detect a note. Is there something you're not telling me?"

She flusters immediately, floundering over what to do or say under the steady gaze of her father. Michael opens her mouth but when her bottom lip quivers she shuts it back again.

There was always a chance of this day happening. She knew it as much as she dreaded its probable coming. Yet now that it's here, she can't help but feel surprised that she is surprised.

" I-"

One small word squeaks past her mouth but the others are held at bay as she struggles to keep her composure.

_I can't _and _I'm sorry _war for supremacy in coming out first but they get caught behind the burning lump in her throat.

He's studying her harder now. What could have been an simple yes or no has devolved into something that is clearly distressing. " Michael? What is-"

"- I am sorry. I can't."

She woke up to a chorus of hissing outside her room. Fear as to what it could be is quickly replaced by curiosity to the time. She blinked blindly into the darkness surrounding her bed for her comm. When she couldn't immediately find where she last placed it, Michael settled for more remedial time telling.

A glance outside displayed The Watcher's luminous body filling up nearly every pane of her window. She and her mother retired earlier than the rest of their family

With the door close it was hard to say what exactly was going on but there was an air of tension to the tone.

Michael unwrapped herself from the thin coverlet and toed out of bed. Stepping closer to the door, the voices are clearly irritated. And familiar.

The deep, rumbling bass of her eldest brother Sybok growled at the snarly tenor of her youngest brother Spock. She stopped near the door, not wanting to trigger its automatic slid open on her approach. It was just as well, she could make out what the two were debating.

" It is inappropriate."

" I did nothing."

" Yet. Do you believe yourself above reproach? Why exactly are you loitering outside of her room?"

" I did _nothing _."

Spock practically hissed the word at him. Maybe that's why they didn't hear the door trigger as Michael shifted forward. What was Sybok's concern? She froze in place, not wanting to make her presence known.

Spock visibly swells in agitation and makes a sound she can neither decipher or recall hearing before. Sybok grimaces and makes a noise of his own. " Bluff all you want to Spock, I will not move until you leave."

Sybok grunts at his young brother as Spock neither confronts him or leaves his spot. He shifts in agitation unsure of what to do next. " Why are you even up."

Spock is quiet when he replies moments later. " I had a dream. About Michael. She was hurt. I was worried she left again."

Sybok softens at this and steps a bit closer. " It is only your REM cycle. Michael has not left."

As if to check for himself, Sybok looks up to find Michael staring at them in the doorway. Spock turns and brightens. " Michael."

He is smiling at her. The earlier snarls and hissing a distant memory as he comes towards her. She smiles back at him and gazes up at Sybok. " I can put him back to bed."

" Be sure that you do." he says gruffly. He has been more emotional since attending VSA. Things between him and his professors have been fraught, their disdain for his open expressions clear from their conversations or lack thereof. His bondmate has also been...unenthused with his use of emotions.

The rich irony of it is that all of their objections have only serve to exacerbate the matter. The more they press the stronger Sybok's emotional strain grows.

Spock following around Michael like a selhat pup hasn't sat well with him. Their mother thinks it is cute, their father believes it serves a purpose. Sybok sees something he knows the others do not.

He stares at Michael a moment longer as Spock takes her hands and spreads their fingers into a practiced ta'al. " Do not linger. You all need to sleep. Good night."

" Yes." she agrees. Their hands are still pressed together when Michael feels Spock's returning upset. She glances at him and catches the furrow in his brow. " I do not wish to return to my quarters."

" But you must sleep."

She weaves their fingers together and tugs him in the direction of his room. He plants his feet and she is jarred to a halt. " May I sleep next to you?"

" Why?"

He tilts his head hiding his eyes and his reasons. Michael tilts her own chasing after his gaze. " Spock?"

His mind answers her in a whisper from where they touch._ I am scared I will wake and you will not be there. I do not trust you to stay._

She sighs. She hadn't thought about all the consequences when she had attempted to runaway and protect them from the extremist. She saw herself as the sole cause of their hate without taking into account the human heritage of her adopted mother and brother.

It's not until years later that also reckons the other reasons but that's neither here nor there now. Now Spock is looking forlorn and clutching her hand as if she might melt away from him. " Please."

It's the please that does it. Spock doesn't use many manners, more prone to scientific quandaries than eloquent requests. She nods her head and walks back to her bed with him. She tucks them both beneath her coverlet and falls back asleep still holding his hand.

Amanda wakes them the next morning in a cheerful refrain. " Good morning kids. Having a sleepover party?"

Spock rubs his eyes and peers up at her from the pillow. " I had to make sure and protect Michael."

Amanda affectionately brushes her hand over his cow-licked hair and gives him the tamest smile she can manage. " That is very kind of you. Such a good brother you are."

Spock beams at her praise and asks what they're having for breakfast. Michael watches them talk while sleep leaves her limbs. She had been asleep, adrift in dreams. Spock's presence followed her into each one. Together they went from one adventure to the next with him trying to make sense of her idle mind's fantasies.

Maybe it's from them falling asleep holding hands earlier in the night. Or the fact that she knew him to be in her bed. Either way Spock's mood is buoyant and she shares it with him.

She sits up and looks at the open door to her room. Sybok is standing within its frame staring at all of them.

When he sees her looking, Michael looks away and mumbles a request for pancakes.

" Why do humans kiss? What is the logic?"

Michael blinks rapidly. His question, like most anything Spock says or asks, takes her by surprise. That he should want to know about kissing at all is one thing but why is he asking her?

She shrugs and goes back to sorting her styluses for school. " To show they care about each other."

" Then why is it that you only perform this gesture with our mother and not the rest of our family?"

" She's human. The rest of the family is Vulcan."

She wonders vaguely if Spock will catch onto the fact that she did not say our family. It still goads him that she doesn't but what bond do they have between them besides caretakers?

He frowns at her answer and pouts his bottom lip as he thinks. Michael feels a reflexive urge to laugh at him as she might have in years past but bites at her lip instead. Fourteen Vulcan years of age and Spock's still pouting like he did at six.

He's finally caught up with her in height which has recently given him an illogical measure of pride over her. He looks up finally as he finishes his pondering. " I am human too and you care for me. Why is it that you do not kiss me?"

It's Michael's turn to frown now as guilt floods over her. _You disgusting half breed _said in her voice rings in her mind and dries her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

He probably still wonders even after all her apologies whether she actually loved him. Her actions had placed the two of them on shaky ground. Michael would play with him, defend him as any sibling would, share and quarrel.

But Michael had alsotried to separate them emotionally along the only bond he saw that they had. She had tried to leave to protect him and shouted slander at him. And now she has not kissed him because he is not human enough for her to see it necessary?

Michael blinks away the blurring effect of the water in her eyes and shakes her head. " You're right Spock. I'm sorry."

She takes a hold of his arms and bends towards him. Spock freezes in amazement, his eyes wide and watchful as she brings her face towards his. When their lips touch she can feel his mind as she can when he has his fingers at her temples. He finds her kiss euphoric. It's incredibly soft with just a hint of warmth. It is over as suddenly as it started and Spock stares at her as if she's became magical somehow without him knowing.

Michael feels he cheeks burn under his starstruck gaze. " See. It's no big deal."

Spock shakes his head slowly and blinks at her with glittering pupils. " I would beg to differ."

They return to silence and resume getting ready for school. She just readying her satchel when his voice addresses her. " Kiss me again."

Now she's truly flustered. Why again? She can see by the look in his eyes that he's puzzling over something but the what is lost to her. Before she can think too much of it she leans closer and does so, this time planting a kiss on his cheek.

She feels his fluttering lashes graze her face as she pulls away and catches the same glittering, awe-struck stare he was giving her earlier on his face. She sucks nervously at her top lip and inadvertently tastes him on her mouth. It's similar to the way he smells, warm and bittersweet like his mother after she's been baking balkra.

Puzzlement flashes briefly in his expression and he pulls forward with his own experiment. He kisses her now, a formless press of his lips against her own. She would tell him he is doing it wrong but he would continue you to try again until she deemed it right. And right now, she can't because she's sure she's giving those bashful, fluttering eyes Spock gave her and she's the one looking touched.

Michael rises a hand to her cheeks and brushes her fingers over the area where her skin feels hottest. She is flush. This was new. She cannot recall feeling this way before, not really.

The closest times are when her classmate Gomal had assisted her up after a fall and briefly touched her hand. The resulting knowledge of his concern over her person before his mind veiled itself had made her feel irrationally favored by him. And then there was the surprised, dizzy feeling she developed whenever she caught sight of Hivok.

Other than her adopted brothers, he had been the most beautiful looking Vulcan Michael had seen. He walked around with his bondmate and friends and could regularly been seen in the commons area. He had never been cruel to Michael but neither had he gone out of his way to welcome her as a peer. A crush, Amanda had called it.

When she felt Spock's fumbling kiss something of it had kindled a similar feeling. It wasn't familial or nurturing like Amanda's or her birth parents had been. It felt...electric. It felt like something she hadn't known was lodged inside her chest was blossoming from its tight bud.

She meets her Vulcan brother's gaze and recognizes the that he feels the same way. They never discuss it and neither one of them shares this new development with anyone else.

That night. If what had happened had only stayed to one evening. She wished it had. She's glad it didn't. Shame haunts her on both accounts. Melds are intimate.

" May I?"

Such a simple, open-ended question. It seemed as harmless as Spock to her.

His long fingers had hovered over her hand as he waited for her answer. In that moment she had to will herself not to rush out a yes. Of course he could but he shouldn't. Even if she desires it, whatever the _it _is and will become.

Michael's gaze went from his fingers to his face. Spock held her stare and allowed her to study him.

He knew her, loved her but how the latter manifested itself as they grew older complicated matters. They are siblings but not. Family but not in blood.

" Please?"

Michael blinks at him startled. Spock did not use please. Whether he considered it below him to use such etiquette or a human pleasantry she did not know. All Michael does know is how much he must want this of her, his desire to share.

She looks at his hand again and chews at her lips. " Okay."

It's his turned to be caught off with her use of okay. He hesitates now and wonders why she used that word in particular.

-After a few tense moments of waiting Michael holds herself still as her brother in name lifts his hand to her face. They're hot to the point of being uncomfortable against her skin as he lines each finger across her face.

Her breath quickens in her throat as the first threads of his consciousness spin through her. She feels his other hand resting itself along her lower back to brace her as he sinks deeper. Soon all the physical sensation slip away and Michael is standing before him in a landscape she is unfamiliar with.

Her unspoken question over their location within his mind reaches Spock as he drags his rapt attention away from her to the amethyst colored stalactites hanging overhead. " It is the cave I made home during my tal'oth."

He looks back to where she's standing rigidly in place and fidgets with his lips as he tries not to smile. " You are allowed to move. My mind will supply any necessary details to the surrounding as you navigate through the memory."

Her brows furrow together and she frowns at him. " I know. I mean, I just do not know where I wish to go."

He seems charmed by her non-admittance of not knowing what to do and steps towards her. " Then come here to me." Spock extends his hand and holds it towards her. " I was gone for nearly five months and I never told you about my time out in the wilds beyond the Forge."

Michael looks at his hand and puzzles over its meaning. He extends it like an olive branch but how does she know it's not a farce for peace between them? She had been happy for Spock's return back beyond Mount Seleya but he had been different. He had been reserved and quiet each time she encountered him. It wasn't solely directed at her; Spock was also quiet with their mother and brother. His relationship with their father remained the same.

Whatever his countenance, Michael did not like it. It was much too close to the time where he had been freshly wounded by her words. Now after weeks of begrudging interactions, here he was extending his hand and beckoning her closer.

A question wiggles free from her heart and threatens to leave her mouth. She swallows at it but it burns at her throat refusing to be silenced. She does not want to ask but Michael cannot in good conscious take his hand without knowing the motivation behind it. " Spock? Why are you doing this? What is it you want me to know?"

His mild expression of amusement sobers into something harder to read. " I want you to know me. I want to be known and- for so long we have been complacent in our ignorance of one another and I for one am I tired of it. I only have so many people who care me and fewer still to understand me. However, I believe you could be the one to best perceive who I am and not what I am."

He tilts his head and levels his eyes at her. " Will you try?"

_For me _? The last two words go unspoken but Michael feels them nevertheless. She steps towards him and places her hand inside his. Spock grips it firmly and the cave around them transforms into the deep red sands of the forge. Michael squints against the glare of Vulcan's suns as she gazes out over the dunes. Spock's hand is still around hers in the vision. His excitement bleeds through her as they traverse the land together.

He takes his time in recounting his months away from them, picking over days and the events that had particular note. He slows his recollection when he feels a pique in her interest, like when he spotted a group of le-matya stalking about in the distance one evening. The fear he felt as he spotted a travel worn stranger. Spock had been forging and saw the male laughing to himself whilst brandishing a knife. He did not know if he were being hunted but he did not make himself known to find out. His wonder at a rare flash flood, all fifteen minutes of it, and the resulting change of landscape as the ground erupted with huge burst of colorful flora.

Michael feels each experience as her own, through his eyes and emotions. She is alive out here. None to judge, none to help, just her brawn, wit and will to see her through this perilous land. It thrills her to see her fragility, how small she is in this world. Still it has welcomed her among its inhabitants to shape and mold time if she has the strength enough to change her circumstances. She feels it, he had felt it and now they are one in it.

Away from everything that would define them, they can be free. They need not chain themselves with the titles of human, whether half or whole, outcast or freak. So long as they do not lose sight of the truth, they could live like this.

He can be Spock and she can be Michael and they can be happy.

Spock's face fills her view as they meld between them dims. He is smiling and she is grinning. He moves his fingers just below her jaw and moves his thumb over her chin. " I thought you would understand what I had to show you because I thought it was something you wanted. To be free of expectations and stereotypes. To be yourself."

Michael closes her mouth but keeps her smiles. " I do want that."

Spock drops his hand away and nods at her. " Then you are free to be yourself with me."

" And you do that with me too." She says back, striking an agreement. And in this bargain, Spock and Michael agreed to share the desert, their minds and their emotions.

She gives him the intimacy his father refused and his mother didn't for his own good. He didn't believe it to be 'good'. He enjoyed hugging Michael. He loved curling against her as they watched holovids in the living room. And while he would not admit it, high fives were thrilling as well.

There positions have changed with age. With him so much larger and her frame remaining petite, Spock has her tucked along his side. Michael ignores both of their emotions as she settles in for the movie and sits rigidly beside him.

An angry green bruise sits just below his left eye accompanied by a split in his bottom lip. Everyone has avoid talking about it since the pair of them arrived back from school but discomfort over how the wounds appeared lingers between them and distracts her from the movie.

Amanda and Sarek had commed in for the conference with the school's headmaster, as productive as that was. It was another reciting of tired lines of Spock and Michael needing to try their best to assimilate to the rest of the school's population instead of contradicting it. That the 'siblings' resistance was often done by vitriol commentary or violent outbursts did nothing to endear them either. Each parent defended them in their own way as best they could but it didn't save either one from in-school suspension.

Guilt and anger welled between them as they left the headmaster's office and had yet to dissipate. Guilt for Michael, that Spock had been dragged into her fight and anger for Spock, that she should even feel ashamed in the first place.

She glances up at his face. Spock stares ahead as if he doesn't feel her gaze studying him. He would have remained that way as well if she hadn't reached out to touch his cheek. His eye catches the movement of her hand and he reflexively flinches away. " Don't Michael."

Michael holds her hand suspended between them, struck by his annoyance. Age had yet to mellow out his moodiness. She thinks it's more of who he is than the person he's becoming. Hormones do nothing to help either. He has to shave now and his deeper voice, still occasionally cracks when he is emotional.

" I am sorry." she mumbled. Spock's huffs in irritation and turns to face her. " Stop feeling for sorry me."

She turned her lip and made a deliberate scoot away from him on the couch. " I wouldn't have to feel sorry for you in the first place if you had just left me to fight my own battles alone."

Spock's nostrils flare and he turns towards the comm projecting the movie. " Computer pause."

_Movie paused_

Michael looks from him to the screen and back again with a frustrated look. " What's your problem."

Spock readjusts himself on the couch with his back to the pillow leaning against the armrest and one leg folded up along the couch cushion. " My problem is you never let me help you."

" I do!" she snaps angrily. " You help me with my studies in-"

" I'm not talking about your studies, Michael." he says cutting her off. " You don't need my help academically anyway. I only tutor you because you asked and it makes mother happy. I'm addressing the fact that when something bothers you emotionally you try and hide whatever the effects are and seek to deal with it on your own."

Michael twists her lips to keep herself from scowling." I'm just being independent. Can't I do things on my own?"

" When it comes to your emotions I would rather you not." he answers glibly.

Michael scoffs and sits up straighter on the couch, inching a bit closer. " I don't believe you have any support on your part to make that kind of accusation. I wasn't the one who started the fight and I certainly didn't end it with people having to go to the infirmary."

Spock ignores her and pushes further. " I am getting tired of saving you, Michael, when I know that you are more than capable of doing so yourself. When are you going to stand up for yourself and stop taking abuse from your peers?"

" If you're so tired then stop! I didn't ask you to save me, I never have! And what do you care, Spock? I was fine and I had it under control." she says firmly.

" Fine? Under control?" he asks, tilting his head. " Crying in the face of your tormentors is what you would consider to be under control?"

" It's not your business!" she shouts. They never argued this long or loudly. With Sarek and Amanda, there's no one to intervene. " They were lying anyways."

" They were planting seeds of doubt." he counters. " To bully you is one thing but they accused you of cheating and sexual acts to achieve your grades. They said all that and you said nothing as if you were guilty."

She is reaching out with an open hand before she was even thinking and gasps as he catches it a moment before it collides with his face. Spock folds her hand between his and Michael feels her sudden anger dissolve under the heat of his regard. Spock laces his fingers with her and watches her expression falter as she fights to keep her face impassive. " I will always defend you just as I will always tell you when you are wrong."

She chuckles bitterly and blinks her eyes rapidly to keep the tears back. " So for eternity then?"

Spock chuffs through his nose and gives her a muted smile. " However long it takes for you to stop being wrong. And to start defending yourself."

Michael bit her lip and leaned towards him. Spock's free arm catches her and pulls her against him. He dips his head down and slants his mouth against hers before she can think of reasons not to. She tastes the coppery sharpness of his scabbed lip and tempers her touch so as not to break it. Spock either doesn't care or notice as he tilts his head and kisses her again, harder this time.

Their joined hands stay together while the others wander. Michael moves her's over Spock's face until her fingers drift through his hair.

He pulls her closer and bumps his forehead against hers. His mind, usually so open and clear to her as the sky, is suddenly hidden from Michael. She breaks the kiss to get a better look at his face. " What are you not telling me?"

He blinks at her and runs his tongue over the wound on his lip. " Nothing you should know about."

His vague answer chills the mood and has Michael climbing out of his lap and back onto the couch to reclaim her seat. " Let's finish the movie."

Spock nods and moves the pillow behind him onto his lap. He orders the movie to resume playing once they've resettled it plays without anymore interruption. They watch until the credits and retire for bed, continuing their own act as if they don't notice the change between them.


	2. Minor Key

Even in the face of her acceptance into Starfleet Michael remains heartbroken. Spock stands at the landing of the stairwell and can hear her soft weeping from there. Soft because even though there is a great deal of passion behind it, Michael still strives to be perfectfuly Vulcan for this world and their father at the moment.

Attending the Science academy, Vulcan's premiere learning institution, had always been her dream since arriving. She would want to fit in as much as possible, be Vulcan like him, their brother and father, their mother had said when he asked over what he saw to be odd behavior.

She was human. And illogical as they were prone to be, he did not see her being any other way. Not being logic led did not stunt her intelligence. Was it really that vital that she fit in with the majority population?

As a child Spock feared what that meant for him if the answer was yes.

He clenches his teeth and slowly treads up the stairs. Michael doesn't stop crying until she hears him knocking at the door. There's quick, hushed sniffling as he imagines her wiping her face and clearing her throat. " Who is it?"

" Spock."

She falls silent. Seconds tick by before she answers him. " Go away."

He inclines his head towards the door and speaks more firmly. " I ask that you let me in."

Michael rebuffs him just as firmly. " And I told you to go away."

Her voice is right on the other side of the door. He stares at the panel as if she could feel the intention behind it. It does, however, not slide open as he desires. He inhales loudly through his nose and rests his head on the door sill. " Do not be stubborn."

" That is really hypocritical coming from you."

She's yelling. It's a good sign. Somewhat. " Stop quarreling with me Michael. Let me in."

" Why? So you can tell me to my face that I am acting irrationally and that I was never going to get in? That I am never going to be good enough. That the sooner I see that the sooner I can move forward with being a productive human member of Vulcan society?"

Spock sighs and lowers his head against the doorframe. She is more distraught than he realized. " I had no intention of saying such things. I came to offer solace."

She's silent again. In all the years they have lived together her accepting his help has still been the hardest. She wants so very much not to need help. Whether it's the trauma of loosing her parents or striving to owe anyone nothing Spock cannot say. She has a martyr complex the size of Gol and genius aside, he is only a nineteen-year-old male.

He thinks over whether leaving or sitting outside her doorway would be more ideal when Michael opens the door. She stands there in the doorway refusing to look at him. Her face is downcast, puffy and moist from crying. He tilts his head and thinks to himself it would be incredibly soft to the touch now.

" What?" she sniffs irritably down at the floor. He takes another breath and pushes past her.

An irritated growl follows him as she spins around. " Excuse me? I did not invite you in."

Spock ignores her protests and gently takes her elbow in hand. She starts to pull back away from him but stops when he awkwardly loops his arms around her. Michael's stiff posture begins to relax when he mimics a terran holovid.

In it the hero comforted the heroine after a long battle with an embrace and used his hand to rub her back. Spock does so now and is relieved to see that Michael is reacting similarly. Slowly she leans onto his chest and relaxes. He rubs her back and observes what he can of her face. Her emotions baffle him even more than his own.

He's never been around someone human or otherwise that could go from elation to inconsolable sadness so deeply or so quickly. Spock has also never had someone try to love and sacrifice for him that wasn't his own blood. So for her, for Michael, he would lower his guard and be what she needed right now. Hers.

She didn't have to say anything. He knew. She was a minority in so many respects here, misjudged and alone. In her parents' passing, there was no one to claim and raise her. No people for her to belong to before his father had took it upon himself to do that for better or worse.

And he, too, was alone. The only one that had ever been like him. He was his parents' hope and both of their people's taboo. A savant. A genetic miracle. A dyslexic half breed.

" Please don't think that."

Spock swallows but says nothing. He notices now that a finger is resting sound along her neck and she had gleaned his thoughts. It was intrusive of her to comment on his internal dialogue but the girl who was Michael lends him comfort as much as he struggles to give it. Guilt burns his hand where he touches her and he moves it down and away from her skin.

" I understood what you were doing then, don't apologize for it now." he says briskly to end that line of conversation.

Michael would say she's sorry for the whole of her lifetime if he let her.

A plan made in haste by her immature mind to protect the ones she loved and cared for only had landed her with scarring everyone. Sarek thought it was par for the course with younglings. Amanda thought herself to blame. Spock knew most of the truth. He was there that night but even now he felt her shying away from introspection.

He knows the wealth of her remorse because he can feels it. Each time he is tender with her in words or gestures Michael folds in under its weight as if she's boneless. It's Spock's reason for his growing distance and rudeness. His proximity hurts her but he can't stay away for too long. He loves her. It's that reason too, ha growing, unyielding affection, that he has tried to keep his distance.

Spock knows very well what he feels for her and he's certain now that Michael knows it too. If she doesn't then he's been better at masking it than he thought. If she does know, however, he wonders why the little confrontational, chaos-making female he calls sister hasn't cornered him and berated him about it. Michael's never been one to hold her tongue.

Spock moves his hand back to her neck and captures it in his grip. Michael startles for a moment and gasps as his mouth falls over her. Spock can almost hear the tears as they run down from her face onto her robes. He doesn't know how to feel about her happiness but he knows he hates it when she cries.

She cried when he was betrothed to T'Pring. She told him she had felt alone then, with no bondmate of her own. " I don't belong here and it shows now."

" Do you want a bondmate?" he had asked her. When she shook her head and shrugged Spock felt himself getting frustrated. He let it go then because his mother insisted he do so and sought to comfort Michael herself. He never found out what was said between them and heard nothing more about it after that. As he kisses her now and holds her like any bondmate would his cherished he wonders. Michael feels herself under his inspection and draws away. " What?"

" Then why did you cry?" he asks softly. " Because father did not have you bonded as well?"

Michael swallow audibly and shakes her head. The straight hair of her bang brushes along her face as she does. The severe cut is a far cry from the curls she wore when they first meet. She and their parents agreed that taking on a Vulcan hairstyle might ease her transition but Spock had always been opposed. He loved that hair and the happier human girl it represented. " If not that, then what?"

" I lost you. Was going to loose what we had. Or I felt that way at least."

" Do you still feel that way?"

She steps away from and pulls her arm free of his hold. " I've lost so much and you all were my family. I always felt that everyone wanted me to feel comfortable but- you wanted- you have been my closest-"

Michael struggles for a word to describe him and Spock uses the time to retrieve her hand. He feels at a loss without the information her mind provides him. If he touches her he reasons, he'll know. He'll know because she's thinking and feeling it and working to mold her understanding of it so she can share with him. Telepathy will be the bridge to joins them.

He takes her hand and freezes. Michael's whole body goes rigid as he takes in her thoughts. His breath feels shallow but he can't draw it deeper. She loves him. A whole Spock and not just a brother or Vulcan or friend. To Michael, Spock is doggedly loyal, ceaselessly annoying and-

Michael snatches away her hand and tearfully cradles it to her chest. Spock gives her a hard look, clearly offended. " Do not hide from me."

She casts the same look back with hope dying in her eyes." What you saw doesn't matter. We can't do this. We can't have each other like...that." she says flatly.

" Why?" he asks shaking his head. " Because of T'Pring? We have long since forsaken one another. Do you have someone that you-?"

" No." she answers hurriedly. " I don't have anyone."

Spock doesn't rebut and say she has him. He retrieves her hand and shows Michael for herself. In the exchange something changes yet again and Spock thinks that Michael might become his.

She's in her senior year in the academy when she gets his call. He is sick and wishes for her to visit. He is insistent that he does not need transport to the clinic. He's even more emphatic that she not inform either parent of his current condition. He just wants her company for comfort.

She thinks he's being hard headed but all the same heads to the apartment they've rented blocks away away from campus. He is shivering when she finds him, huddled over his bed with his duvet over his shoulders. A thin, sleeveless undershirt and maroon pair of sweatpants are all he has on but Spock shakes like he needs more clothing on in the stifling heat of his bedroom. He looks up when she opens the door and reaches out to Michael as she enters his room.

Michael hisses out a curse when she feels the heat of his hand and scowls at him. " Spock! You're burning up. We have to go. Come on, let's-"

She's stopped short when he grips her hands and knocks her off balance. She falls towards him and he catches her quickly. Spock pulls her closer and begins to nuzzle his face into the space between her head and shoulder. He grips her tighter and shivers, smothering her petite frame in his grip. " I don't need to go. I just need you. I need you close so I can concentrate on you."

Michael inhales sharply as makes a tentative lick at her collar bone. There's a possessiveness there that's - concerning, as well as intriguing. Nothing he's said or done makes any sense to her. " What? Stop scaring me. You don't need me you need a hospital!"

He tightens his grip and slowly shakes his sweltering head against her shoulder. Vulcan cannot sweat but Michael can't help but think Spock would be drenched with it if he could. It's for this reason his fever scares her. She could lose him; Spock could die.

He shakes his head at her deepening fear and nips her shoulder. " No. I just. Need. To know where you are-and that you are with me. That should be enough."

Michael shakes her head and fidgets in his hold. " What the hell is the matter with you?"

She sees him blush as if he could grow more flush than he already is and avert his gaze. " It is, something- I did not think would happen to me. This condition- we don't speak-"

He stops and shakes again. Michael feels his shame and relief in having her near with the heat of his fever. He doesn't want her to see him like this but that she came and she's safe and chose to be here with him might have him overcome the biological imperative he faces. She wriggles her arm free from where he has it barred against her side and places her hand at his face. An ineffectual way of taking temperatures but luck would have it she gleans a bit of what has him ailing.

Her eyes flutter and her body smolders at his appraisal. He wants her, has always wanted her but desires Michael especially now. He needs and he despartly wants her- as a bondmate would have its chosen. She's shocked. " Spock? Is this what I heard about in school?"

" What did you hear?" he rasps. That appraisal she felt earlier deepens as Spock focuses on her face.

He's so close like this that she looks away from his glassy stare and answers down between them. " Female Vulcans use to say that the males would get, sick. That they would get illogical. Is-" Michael stops herself from being insensitive or crude. It is neither the time or place to be so. She think he might actually die but his sense of assurance is the only thing weighting her down.

"- is there a time where you would need a female? To couple with? Is this what they were talking about?"

She looks up to see him nodding miserably at her. Even now he tries to assure her. " I don't need you like that. I- don't think. I just need you close because it helps me think and- I can meditate until the condition passes."

She licks her lips and barely hears her own voice when she speaks next. " And what then if I wanted to help you the...traditional way?"

Spock shudders and she feels the muscles of his arms flex around her. " Then I would welcome everything you desired to give."

And for the first time in their relationship Michael kisses him as hers.

A flash of something, dizzying and euphoric tickles her stomach and she parts her lips to chase it. Spock follows her leads and curls his tongue over hers in hot reception. She pushes the comfort that's around his shoulder off and helps him shed his clothing. He does the same for her, kissing her in between garments. His shivering has reduced to small tremors by the time he pulls them both onto the bed.

The heat rolling off him is stifling but Michael can't find any sense to care. The fever raging through him has her squirming from another. Anyone that could care about what they do now is lightyears away or clueless beyond their rental and not in her head the way Spock is right now. She brings her hands to the back of his head as he drags his lips up her sternum and across her throat. " Spock."

He's never touched her like this and the thrill of it frightens her. It feels as delicious and maddening as she thought it might. Not that she has tried to entertain these types of thoughts.

_But you have_. A voice, hers or his, she's not certain but Michael knows that she has thought about it. The voice knows too, that she's thought of him and her, in bed like this and for all her thinking she's done she still doesn't know what to do. She settles on wrapping her legs around him and closing her eyes to concentrate on what she feels.

He's mouthing at her neck when he finally pushes forward. Her eyes at flutter open then shut softly back close, furrowing into pained lines with tears welling in the corners. " Spock!"

He pauses immediately, leaving the prize of her neck while holding his hips braced flush against her own. Guilt, fear and uncertainty start to gnaw at the lusty fog hovering over his brain as he begins to assess her.

Why did it hurt her so? He did not want it to, took his time in touching her. Such stimulation should have mitigated or got rid of the pain entirely. Should have but then again Spock had only theoretical premises to rely upon. Experience always counted for something and in this case would have proven invaluable.

His heavy brow tilts up forlorn making its own apology. " I am sorry." he croons at her. " I did not mean to."

Michael catches his arm when he tries to pull away and shakes her head. " Stay."

She takes his hand and places it back at her breast with a push of encouragement. " Stay."

She sees his throat move with the motion of swallowing as his excitement rekindles. His flagging erection returns full force as he puts his mouth onto the breast in his hand and suckles hardily. He lifts his hips and draws away from her, halting a bit as he hears her hiss once more in pain.

He releases her nipple from his mouth and frowns. She can feel his desire to stop at her pained consent. He wants to continue but...he had not thought it would be like this.

Ever the strategist, Spock reaches towards her face and splays his hands over it. Michael gasps as his mind rushes over her. Fine frills of titillation assail her until she can no more feel the sting of his length from the immensity of his pleasure.

He tests the link, with a slow glide back in and is rewarded with a low moan from her throat as she bares her neck to him. He growls silently at the display, luxuriating at his masterful play over her body.

Michael swallows thickly at the air and claws at his shoulders. A muffled umph huffs through her nose as he adjusts further.

Spock begins a rhythm, trying alterations in depth and speed. She moves to curl her legs back around his waist in a manner that they both find agreeable. Spock's splayed fingers relay the sensations of his bedmate and threaten to have him spill soon after. When the pain has abated enough he retrieves his hand and returns it at her side.

Their unclothed undulations is nothing like their stolen moments of heavy petting. The pleasure they found in rubbing their clothed crotches together was akin to patting at an itch. It merely annoyed the affected area. This sinuous coupling of their bodies is the actual scratch that they've been craving.

Michael tosses her head against the pillow and lets her jaw hang slack. Spock rushes forward to lean his head into the space. His ear is angled at her mouth this way. Delight in each brush of her lips against them along with her warm, little throaty noises she makes peppers his movements inside her.

In each passing minute he gains an air of confidence with her. Michael feels his hands slid low around her hips, tilting her pelvis to alter the angle. The difference of it is instantaneous.

She wails against him as pleasure streaks through her. Her hands at his shoulders clutch Spock to her as she falls apart. Around, against, beside, below, she quakes with Spock in a way she's never found with her fingers. Spock grunts suddenly and does a sharp withdrawal to take himself in hand.

She sighs in disappointment at the loss of fullness, wishing that he could have stayed within her as he spent himself. Instead she finds her belly and breasts being coated in hot, sticky blobs of white as his fist ushers out the last waves of his bliss.

She tilts her head a bit and watches it pulse in his hand as if it has become its own little entity, trembling as it spews spunk like molten lava onto her body.

Spock shivers like a wet dog above her before lowering himself on top of her. He's braced by his forearms but his weight is enough that the bulk of it soothes her into a sleepy sorta of meditation.

Michael closes her eyes and sighs blissfully. It's short lived. Worry over when either her father or Amanda will sense their tryst chips away at her languid reframe. She wants to stay like this for hours, to sleep with him or possibly have him between her legs again.

Spock twists his head to kiss her. It's awkward and full of sentiment like everything he does towards her now. He does it because she likes it and he wants her to enjoy such things from him, enjoy him as hers.

He kisses her again and the press of his skin belays the thoughts lingering just beneath the surface. _I want you too. I want you again. I want to sleep and rest beside you and fuck you once more._

Her body twitches as the thought of him with his head there at her center, his tongue and lips and alien teeth, nipping and teasing her to pleasure passes between them. " You're no help."

Spock raises his head and tilts it with a mock suggestion of being wounded by her words. " I would beg to differ."

" I will get my son myself."

It's a singular statement that says so much to Michael. How Amanda regards Spock. How Amanda regards her. That Michael is unable, unfit to see to the task of saving her brother. It accuses her of betrayal. That her love of Spock is not strong enough to see this crisis through.

It says so much but there is only one thing that stings Michael in a way she finds hard to recover from. It's the only thing she cared about because it has been the only thing she feared from Amanda.

Rejection.

Her words told Michael that she is no longer apart of the family. Her betrayal of Spock, whatever Amanda feels or imagines it to be, has convicted her into an orphaned life once more. Sarek of course would not abandon her but- this is Amanda. She had welcomed her with arms and heart open and now both are closed.

Michael blinks away her tears and settles into the familiar space of having to comfort herself.

Everyone in the S'chn T'gai household assured Michael of her place among them but Michael knew the strength of blood. The trust Amanda had given her has now flown off to some distant land until Michael found some way of retrieving it. If only her mother knew. If only Michael could tell her how strong her love truly was for Spock she wouldn't have said that. But then again, such a taboo would have seen her ousted from the family as well.

So Michael watched her walk away from her instead and out of the room with the same expression she bore weeks later.

She's back at home- no, at their home. She alerts them to her presence by the doorbell. Sarek greets her warmly but puzzled. Why would she not let herself in? Surely see knew the code. Why would she ring the bell like a stranger to be let in?

He does not question aloud and Michael does not offer an answer. Thing are falling apart and she has no way to save this family anymore than she could her own but it does not stop her from trying. She loves Sarek. She loves Amanda and Sybok. And in all the ways she can she love Spock.

Though she will not be pleased to see her, Michael looks the catacomb like caves beneath their house staring at her and Spock. Amanda's disbelieving hope and Spock's vacant stare. Michael feels her chest collapse in on itself at his constant muttering. He's mad, he's truly gone mad. Her face is mournful as she steps before him and calls his name. " Spock. Spock. I'm sorry but I'm here now."

He see her but doesn't. He moves on from her to carve more numbers into the walls.

" What is your relation to my sister."

The diners in the cafeteria near enough to hear stiffen. Spock is standing in front of Ash Tyler as he sits eating at the table. His soup-filled spoon is held suspended in the air, forgotten by the unexpected intrusion.

Saru is nowhere to be seen and for a moment Tyler thinks that it was planned this way. A look at the stony Vulcan before him affirms it into a knowing. There was no way that he would have acted on emotion, not purely. He is a male of logic and Ash is now aparty to a game.

He clears his throat and lowers his spoon. " Would you like to have a seat?"

Spock spares a glance at the chair Ash gesture towards before flickering his gaze dismissively away and back to the officer. " If I would have liked to I would have. My inquiry remains unanswered. What is your relation to Michael?"

Ash pinches his lips together in an offended frown and straightens in his seat. " I… once courted her. I loved her."

Spock tilts his head and narrows his gaze. " Who exactly?"

This startles him. Ash's frown softens. " What?"

Spock's face hardens. " I believe I made my question clear. There are two of you present, which entity loved and courted my sister?"

Ash shrugs and looks down around the floor as if thinking about it for the first time. " I don't know I would say Tyler but it's not so simple."

A clicking sound leaves Spock's jaw as it cracks under the strength of him clenching his teeth together. " In the face of this complication, I will give you a simple answer. Neither one of you, Klingon or human, should approach or act outside of your station with her."

Tyler shakes his head, disbelieving and stares at him. " What?" he repeats.

Spock chuffs. " Have your mental processes been so compromised with these surgeries that you cannot understand me? Here, I will try another way."

Spock's brow lowers as he looks down his nose at him. " naDevvo' Michael yIghoS. ( Leave Michael alone)."

Ash's mouth morphs into a snarl. " Qo' ( I won't)"

A single eyebrow rises up on Spock's face. " We shall see."

" I guess we will then." Ash spits sourly. He levels a disgruntled glare in his direction as Spock turns on his heels and retreats towards the galley's only doorway.

Ash returns to his soup and ignores the hum of low whispers surrounding his table.

The second it happens on the ship, He is restless. She certainly can't say they're making love. Not with the coveting hold he has on her hips and the fingers hungrily cupping her sex.

Michael arches into his pelvis and lets out a high-pitched mew. He's claiming her now as he always promised he would. She had taught him many years ago about being human and now he in turn instills in Michael the nature of a Vulcan. Spock besets himself upon her as soon as he comes into her quarters.

She gazes at him curiously and gasps as he pulls her to him. His mouth is over hers a moment later, stealing her breath and focus. She is working...was working...is now being crowded bodily towards the bed. Hot hands tear at her clothing and deftly unfasten any clasps, buttons or zippers they encounter.

Michaels breaks her lips away and holds her hands to his chest. " Spock? What is this?"

His jaw ticks as she watches him. Like so much of their childhood he ignores her question as unnecessary and moves to kiss her again. Michael curls her lip and baulks away. " Why are you being this way?"

" Why do you care?" he quips, dipping to kiss at her neck instead. Michael huffs and squirms as he brings them down onto her bed. His hands had been busy and now have her torso bare to him with her jacket open and her undershirt pushed up. His thoughts feel sharp against her nerves as they travel up her arm. _I want to make you retract the words against my beard as I feast at you._

He rents her bra in two and latches hungrily onto her breast. Michael twists in his grip and huffs up to the ceiling. Spock, this Spock, was different. He was aggressive to her and possessive of her. Whatever had happened in the time between their deployments had made for a more ardent lover.

Her breath left her as he sat up and tore at her boots. He all but ripped off her pants and left his in no better of a condition. When he finally has her bare and above him, Spock sends his hips up to meet hers.

A soundless cry grips her throat as his lok fills each of every inch of her in a thick, searing brand. His hands hold her steady as he rushes out just as quickly and lets gravity slid her back down his length. It is mind-numbing and nerve-wrecking. It's been years since they've joined like this and she thought it would have been the last after he graduated and was assigned to the Enterprise.

To say that she was content with that arrangement was an outright lie but there was a peace over her in not being caught in such a contentious relationship with the Vulcan her adopted father wished to make her brother.

Spock senses her mind wandering and seizes it beneath his. Lust and longing pent up from years apart grips Michael and liquifies her ability to think. Spock takes a hold of her hips and moves them like this until she's crying above him in ecstatic trembling, once, twice, three times.

On hands and knees he works her next, feeling more insatiable and hungry for her in this position. His body demands as well as gives and Michael stuck riding his rut on the paltry bed below them. Mine he thinks loudly within her mind. Love, devotion, bliss, jealous, filth and a trillion other emotions burst forth behind the declaration and Michael keens beneath him.

Spock's arms reach out and catch her from fully collapsing against the bed. " I want to make you come again."

Michael whimpers and shudders around him. She's spent. Spock has worked her over thrice and made her come four times already.

True she is tired from his affection but how can she refuse him? There's no telling how long they'll have to wait to be like this again. Spock watches her raptly with his dark eyes studying her face braved to the side against the cover. He feels her resolve but desires to hear it.

" Yes." she pants, reaching up awkwardly to stroke at his face.

Spock buries nose into her and licks at her palm with purr rolling out from his throat. " Thank you."

He moves them to have her ride him again.

He's whipping his hips again shortly after. He holds her hips in places so he can thoroughly guide himself in. Michael mumbles please between moans and sets her nails into his chest. Shouldn't he have come by now? He had never gone this long before. Not since his time. She struggles to think how much time has past between but she can't in this state.

Her head lolls forward and then back as she subjects herself to the demanding wind of his hip. She's on the verge of feeling sore but the promise of another peak of her pleasure dulls the warning. " Say it."

Michael's eyes snap open to see Spock's face open to her. He's asking for her humanity to claim him just as his Vulcan half does with her. " Say it. Please…"

" What do you want me to say?"

" How you feel-" _-about me…_

He does not say it aloud but shares it all the same.

" I love you, Spock." She comes soon after with a sense of terror that she not only can she not take it back but that she does not wish to. " I love you."


	3. Chapter 3

She returns to her quarters she shares with Tilly. Her roommate is thankfully still working on the bridge where she's trying to troubleshoot with . Michael crosses the room to the small table behind their beds and braces herself over it. The mess of her chessboard still lies in shambles on the floor. She can't the stop the thought from forming in her mind that she feels akin to it.

Spock's angry, Amanda's shunning, Sarek's inability to empathize, has broken her. She thought the world had ended when the Klingons killed her birth parents but since joining Starfleet and falling in love with the male that was supposed to be her brother she sees that things could be and have been far worse.

She knows each one of their arguments against her current depression. Sarek would say that logically, the course of her actions could only be learned from. Amanda, if she would speak to her now that she had seen to Spock being healed, would say the war was inevitable and no more her fault than the Klingons. Spock, however-

Michael steels herself with a breath and turns away from the ruins of her chessboard. She can no more look at it than she can the bed they made love in just hours before. He had told her to tell him, to profess her love for and of him. He had played her heart just as masterfully as he has done with her body and mind, time and again. She didn't deny it nor had she wished to but where was his confession? Where was he? Wherever Spock was, he was livid and all his ire was directed at her.

Maybe it was from having to relive the moments in which she scarred him irrevocably while they were on Taols IV or the months he spent slowly going mad. She wouldn't blame him on either account. Spock had been there for her as best he always could, fighting for and alongside her as his sister and- more. And then she left for Discovery and something between them broke.

He has been sore with her but never angry. Michael hugs herself and walks over to her bed. The well of emotions she tries to hold back leave her feeling raw. She lays down and lets herself cry. This command has been so hard...seen so many lost, her Captains, her friends. Will it have taken Spock too?

The door slides open and close with no welcome from her or greeting from the person entering. She knows from the candance on the floor who it is and closes her eyes to keep herself blind. He walks past either ignoring her or oblivious of her grief and goes to the table where she had just been standing moments before.

His deep voice breaks the silence gently between them, soft and apologetic as he assembles something behind her. Her ailing spirits grabs onto like a drowning man while her mind deciphers his words.

When he finishes she sits up to see a new three dimensional chess board sitting proudly on the table. While the details are similar the craftsmanship tells her that it was her brother and not a replicator that saw to its production.

Spock sits primly on the other side of the table like some giant bowerbird looking for the appraising female before him to approve of his work. Michael smiles a little and with it finds the deep ache in her chest subsiding. She rising up and out of the bed and sits across from him. He gives her an elegant, single nod for her start and she accepts with moving her first pawn down onto the base board.

They play three rounds in silence, enjoying the mundane task between them. Michael welcomes the respite, thankful that she's been relieved, no matter how briefly, of her Starfleet and familial duties.

These games are as much of an apology as they are an acceptance. She knows it from the brief but frequent brush of his fingers across her own. Soothing little kisses that ferry over superficial thoughts. She pleased with both and tells him as much. The spaces Spock held for her within the melds, his mind and heart remain open and warm.

Jealous and despair had gripped him when he saw her with Ash Tyler. First he had lost her to duty and now to this...traitorous interloper? He had tried to kill her and yet she forgive him? He could not comprehend it and his instinctual Vulcan possessive, protectiveness sought to secure her away from the rogue Klingon.

An apology spins its way through his fingers, if he embarrassed or upset her with his rough handling of her body when he last took her. He does not, however, regret one moment of confronting Lieutenant Tyler and would gladly do so again to keep her safe.

" Checkmate." he announces, moving his piece to the top board.

Michael blinks and scrunches the bridge of her nose. " That's hardly fair. You distracted me the entire game."

Spock lifts a brow and resets the board. " It sounds to me like you could not maintain your concentration and carry on a conversation at the same time."

She moves to help him with the game, going back behind him to straighten up the pieces. " Kissing isn't a conversation."

His lips quirk at her bickering with the pieces and shots Michael a look that's none too innocent. " We could amend that however…"

Spock trails his fingers up her arm in a long, sloppy form of a kiss. Michael's eyes open slowly to find that she's in his quarters and not her own. I must have fallen asleep then she thinks as she stretches beside him. Strange, when had they gone from her bed as children to his bed as adults. Still here, still protecting her.

Spock noses along the back of her neck and plants a long, lingering kiss at the bite he marked her with.

She closes her eyes again and exhales silently as he does. She never knew it could be like this between them. Interactions are still fraught in public but simple enough. Spock wouldn't touch her so intimately out in public even if he was her bondmate.

" I am."

She swallows and turns around to face him. She realizes they're both bare as she does and can't seem to find it in her to care. She reaches out towards his face and he readily rubs his cheek into it. " You're my bondmate now?"

" When have I not been?"

" When you were hers." Michael says lifting an eyebrow and tapping a finger to the tip of his nose. Spock's mouth forms into a pout and he blinks at her. " Only in name but never in any other respect."

" You can't be."

" For you Michael, I am and I would be more. All you have to do is say yes."

She holds her breath as a bit of him stirs in her mind as he stares at her. He slides away when she stays silent and kisses her with his fingers. " I am yours. You just let me know when you will be mine."

Spock adjusts from where he's sitting at the comm station. Trying not to list back and forth has been a challenge but the familiar earthy scent of the human who-is-his sister on his jacket gives him something to concentrate on.

When words would want to twist and numbers jump their place, her voice would chase them back into place.

It's the reason he's not surprised that when he does come back to his mind, she's right there before him, angry, surly and worried within an inch of her life.

It's for that fact, Spock wrestles with the current task at hand. Listening to Michael's mother, the red angel, professing what she's witnessed and what she knows.

" I know what you've done with Michael."

It was an accusatory phrase delivered in a heavy southern lit. Spock paused the journal entry labeled for his eyes and ears alone after that one simple statement, unable to go on.

If it the red angel were some unconnected stranger stating such facts that would be one thing. The fact that it was Michael's mother, however, change and affecte a number of things.

Spock takes a measured breath and gazes towards the data chip containing 's message files. As much as he dreads learning what she has to say, Spock feels damned without it.

What _did _her mother know? What _had _she seen? What did she think of what she's witnessed?

Heat rushes up the back of Spock's neck as he swallows and straightens with his hands behind his back. " Computer, restart message."

The screen goes clear and then projects the image of the rocky gray landscape in which Dr. Burnham had, has and continues to make her camp. She sits propped against a rock with pitiful fire struggling to burn behind her. Her hair has the same length and density that Michael once possessed and that she has pulled into a serve braid trailing down her back.

She smiles at the camera as the log entry data displays along the bottom and he finds his chest constrict from the familiarity of it. He has never met her outside of the suit but he knows this smile. It's Michael's smile or apparently, their smile. Worn and grieved but most definitely theirs.

Her voice is much deeper than Spock anticipates it being, almost strained when she speaks.

" Hello Spock. You'll forgive me that I couldn't stop and formally introduce myself."

Her smiles widens at her attempt at humor but Spock cannot find an appreciation of it. She is trapped in time, seemingly damned for eternity to hop between planets and millennia. The brief meld he was able to manage with her drove him mad. He clenches his jaw and waits for _the _line.

" My name is Doctor Gabrielle Burnham. You first saw me as a child when I showed you the vision of Michael running away from your house and being...killed."

She grinds her teeth between the last two words and averts her gaze from the camera. Despair dims her expression momentarily before she recovers and composes herself. She looks back to the camera and shifts on the rock. " I never got a chance to thank you. I can't say it enough. My baby girl means the world to me."

She sighs then, so deeply that her whole body moves with the flow of air. Her eyes harden a moment later and she pins Spock with a look so severe he doesn't think even his father could perform such a feat.

" I know what you've done with Michael."

Again his skin chills as the words settle over him. He takes a deep breath in through his nose to steels his nerves for what will follow. She pauses as if anticipating his discomfort and breathes along with him. " I've known for a while now. And I don't know how you'll take this but-"

She stops and frowns. Spock stares unblinking, waiting for the rest of her sentence. She looks down between her legs and give a rueful smile. " I don't know what line of time you're following right now and where you are along it but hopefully this analogy makes sense."

He tilts his head, curious as to where her explanation may lead. She begins and gestures with her hands as she goes. " When you have children, you want the world for them. You want to see their first smile, their first steps. You want to celebrate their wins, comfort and encourage them during their failures, explain how things work out in the real world and say how they could make them better."

She bounces her hands before her as if she's weighing something in her mind. " It's why I became doctor. It's why I wanted to be mom."

turns towards the screen and shakes her heads. " Being Michael's mama has been my biggest blessing. Ever since she was born, I knew that girl was going to be someone amazing."

She smiles and huffs through her nose. " She was always getting into stuff and asking why this and why that. She was and still is a force to reckon with. Never knew if she'd ever find someone who would marry her that wouldn't dim her light or she wouldn't stream-roll over."

The Doctor flips her wrist into the air and her smile turns from wistful to sly. " Then in my jumps, I saw you two, bumbling around each other, fighting like cats and dogs- or more like an old married couple."

She points to the camera and Spock feels the conviction behind it as she wags it at him. " You get on her nerves Spock and confuse her but you've never let her down. In all the times I've seen my baby girl saved or strengthen you've been behind it."

_" I know _why you went to starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy. I know that you felt solidarity with Michael in your humanness on Vulcan, loved the bond you two had in that. How deep it cut you when she tried to keep you safe and hurt you in the process. I know that you admired her once you gave her a chance. And I know that you've loved Michael ever since."

She falls silent for a while and sits back against the rock. Her eyes track memories he can't see or relive with her. Her face changes with each one, flipping from surprise, grief, joy and back again. She blinks and thumbs away a stray tear threatening to drop from the corner of her eye. " She needs you, Spock and she loves you too. She was so lost when her father died and I got trapped with this suit but _you found her _."

Dr. Burnham shakes her fist as she tries to convey her words. " There were so many times when she wanted to give up on her dreams, her hopes but she had you fussing over her like a mother hen, know-it-all that would see hell freeze over before you let her do that. You knew life could be hard but you wouldn't let it break Michael. You showed her how to bend. You and your family did you best by my baby when I couldn't and I'm grateful for it."

Spock feels a tickle at his side at her gratitude. He isn't certain what he had expected from Michael's mother but it surely wasn't any of this. Her happy but tired face smiling softly at him had been the farthest expression from his mind.

She adjusts the sleeves on her suit and places her hands on her knees with a hum. " You're probably wondering what I think about y'all-" she makes a gesture with her hands and Spock finds himself blushing as understanding dons on him. "- your little Vulcan Adam and Human Eve impression you all like to do when you find yourselves alone?"

He holds his breath as her face goes hard like his mother when she's about to disapprove of something. She holds her scowl for a few more seconds before bursting out into deep, rolling laugh. She waves at the camera as she composes herself and clears her throat. " It's certainly not the way I wanted you two to go about it but then again I'm not there to vet any men Michael is interested in or advise her of on dating. Either way, you have my blessing." she shrugs and blinks slowly at the camera. " Would have been better if you two weren't brought up as siblings but I know better than anyone that life and love isn't orderly or fair. We all just make the best with what we have and remain grateful in the face of adversity."

Spock nods at the declaration as if she could see him and clasps his hands behind him. " Now I know she's hard-headed- hell, who am I talking to? You know that as well as anybody and you have a stubborn streak about you too." she chuckles. " - just promise me one thing Spock."

He mentally wills the yes he feels and listens on as she stares intently at the camera. " Promise me that you'll always- I mean, even if you two don't make things official, that you will-" her voice cracks and she had cough and clear her throat once more. " I want you to keep on being there for my baby girl. Until I can get back. Look out for her, love her and be there for her as best you can."

She goes on from there into a less personal, more detailed log entry, saying how his unique make up being Vulcan and human with a rare form of dyslexia has given her the only key to communicate to the present- their present. She concluding this observation when the door slides open and Michael walks in.

He turns slightly to watch her come alongside him and study her mother on the comm screen's projection. Her movements and expression are tempered from years on Vulcan but the light in her eyes displays everything she tries to hide. Dr. Burnham continues on about Spock and Michael smiles beatifically. That familiar smile she shares with her mother that she has often reserved for him. " She's got you analyzed pretty well, Spock."

He cants his head to the side in the Vulcan form of a shrug. " Maybe I am less of an enigma than people accuse me of being?"

Michael lifts a brow at his cheekiness and gives him a muted smile. " I doubt it's that."

Spock steps closer and meets her playful gaze with a mirth of his own. " I would think that brilliance runs in the Burnham family. At least for its women."

She comes to his side, nearly brushing her arm with his and grins at him. " Do you _think _so?"

Spock glances towards the door before wrapping her fingers with his to convey his conviction. " I _know _so. I am charmed with one and do not wish to rectify it."

She's tugging on the radiation suit when she hears the door slid open. Tilly has already been in just minutes before, leaving her with one conclusion as to who was coming in. " Spock. I'm going."

Large hands take a hold of her own and move her back against the solid bulk of his frame. " I am aware."

She turns her head to gaze up at him and feels them both working not to smile too broadly. " If you are aware then what are you doing here?"

Spock tucks his head alongside hers and closes his eyes with a raspy sigh. " That is simple enough to answer. I am here because you are here."

Michael exhales quietly as his arms come around her and lets her eyes shut as well. " I'm sorry we don't have much time. We never had that much time."

" I do not require much. The present has its own contentment to be felt."

Michael moves in his arms to stand face to face with him. " It is nice to hear something logical and kind from you."

His eyes crack open to peer down at her as he reset his head to rest along her forehead. " I have rarely been given an opportunity to be so magnanimous with you. You have always been a person who chaos follow. You are also stubborn."

" You're stubborn too." she says shaking her head.

Spock tilts his head to the side and lifts a brow. " Also being stubborn does negate your own, Michael."

" Trying to reason with you is hopeless." she sighs, smiling.

" Trying to rid you of your dramatics is akin to Sisyphus toiling with the his boulder up hill. Common sense will never stay put within you."

She chuckles silently against chest. The soft fabric of his jacket is warm from being against skin. Michael suppress the urge to nuzzle against him but indulges the whim to sniff along the lapel. Spock's scent is strong there. The smell reminds her of the days spent outside among the red K'ai tree just outside their home. She would read underneath them to shade herself from the sun while Spock ran around finding things to show her.

Michael moves her hands up along his side and feels his heart below her left palm. She doesn't even think of it as strange. Spock is normal to her like taking a breath of air, involuntary and life-long. She feels him mirror the movement at her side with his hand just below her breast. What could be seen as sexual has a different air of intimacy.

They feel that the other is alive, hearts strong and thrumming within their torsos. It might be the last time and for that reason, Michael wanted to have the memory of Spock and her like this. Hands to heart, eye to eye.

" I wish things had been different." She wants to moves her hand to his face but doesn't. No telling what that kind of touch would lead to. Spock glances down at the hand she thought to move and brings his own after from her chest to her face. " Different how?"

He's asking for her to show him. It's been years since they've melded. Spock feared its practiced repetition might make for a mating bond between them, that their father would deter. That he had one at all bothered Sarek into inquiring over it. Spock had made him content with the answer that she had formally requested one with him as her brother. While not entirely true, Sarek didn't argue the point. He had bonded with Michael as a Vulcan father would his child to maintain a sense of security over her welfare. He let it go but Spock could tell his father did not wholly satisfied with his answer.

He pulls along the weak string of it, smiling gently as he sees Michael's eyes light from feeling flare to life between them. " Show me."

She moves slowly to bring her hand to rest of his at her face and closes her eyes.

She opens them to see Spock looking around them. A litany of emotions race through him as takes in her appearance. " A telik robe."

Michael nods down at the silky gauze of her gown beneath it and spreads her arms out to the side to stretch the thin robe atop it. Spock glances down towards his own attire, a thick embroidered robe of dark bronze with his clan's name running down the lapel.

To the left is an elder matriarch with her guard, a healer with their assistant. Between them stands a podium with a large triangular gong mounted at its center. On either side are their parents, Michael smiling tearfully on the left and Spock's looking far more stoic about the event but no less moved by it on the right. In this world they was no red angel, no klingon war or attack on her family.

In this timeline, their family grew acquainted, saw the soundness of a bond for their children and now celebrate the final step in its completion. Here she is strong and unbroken. Here in her dream they are free not just in their melds or closed off rooms. They are together out in the open.

The ruby colored sand shines gold from the light of the suns above, making her pale blue robe take on an angelic like appearance. In the not too far off distance lies a cave where she and Spock would finish the commencement of their bonding, alone together for three days time.

He turns back to her and the way he looks at her makes her tear up and smile. He blinks back tears of his own and steps closer to her. He raises his hand palm up before her, demonstrating what should be done. Michael follows with resting hers atop his with her fingers lightly grazing his wrist.

Spock's lips quirk at the joy that bubbles over through her touch. He sends back his own amazement with her mind's imagination and admiration of him. He thinks she set her requirements far too low if in her fantasies it is he that she fancies but she firmly rebukes him in an honest regard of her love for him. He flusters and for a moment can do nothing more but be in awe of it.

Holding her gaze Spock next draws up two fingers. He waits for her to mimic the gesture before running them down one side of her hand followed by the other.

" Apart but never parted."

Michael's fingers tic in barely suppressed happiness as disbelief suspends itself for a moment. She's bonding- with him. And he, Spock-

She mirrors the motion of his hand and clears her throat to dislodge the lump of emotion growing there. " Separate but whole."

" We are one heart, one soul." they chant in unison, to the chattering of bells shook by the elder's guards. They halt immediately as the elder holds up her hand in call for silence. She glances towards them and speaks in a Vulcan dialect that neither one has ever used. " Kneel before the healer and have thine minds observed."

Spock kneels first, bracing Michael as she comes down to upon the ground next to him. The healer comes forward moments later and quickly rests a hand on each other their brows. He just as swiftly draws them back and turns to the elder and their families. " Telik." he says in confirmation and the guards begin to shake their bells once more.

Spock stands before her and waits for her to join him. Once on her feet, he leaves Michael to strike the gong on the podium and raises his voice in proclamation. " Kali'fee."

The bells ring again and stop as Michael takes her place beside. A question passes between them as he watches her approach. Is this what she wanted? If time and the events therein were in fact, different would Michael want him as her mate?

Michael stops before him and holds up two fingers in acceptance. " Kali'farr."

Spock's gaze holds her as he reaches out and presses his fingers to hers. " T'nash veh."

Michael waits for the meld to end but feels Spock's reluctance to do so. She looks at him and sees the image of him as her husband shift to reveal the cave beyond. The touch he has on her hand is deep with a heated promise as he eyes her. " You are my bonded here but not yet my wife. Do you wish you amend that or end the meld?"

Michael flushes as she takes in his meaning. Of course but-

_-but what? When we are here, are you not mine? As my bonded, can I not make you my wife? No one is here to glean what we think and share so you can share with me all you wish._

She inhales slowly between parted lips and lifts her chin to him in challenge. " Make me yours then, Spock. Attend me."

A tremor racks through him as her further inflame him. " Come."

He turns his back to her and stalks towards the cave. Michael trails behind him, eager to see what would and could have been between them as formally bonded mates.

The elder claps her hands behind them and calls an end to the telik ceremony. " The time of bond has ended. Now the time of consummation."

Michael hears the bonding guests shuffle off behind her as she and Spock draw closer to the cave in his mind's eye. Her hands shake in the bells of her sleeves. She clasps them together but her heart races unabated.

They've joined dozens of times but something about figmented coupling makes her nerves bad. How would feel? What would he think of her? What was she expected to do? And if they did this here, what would it mean outside the meld?

If Spock is privy to her thoughts he stays silent in answering her. Instead he retrieves a torch and waits for her to come at his side. The look he gives her further inflames Michael as Spock looks like a male possessed. It turns out he is once they enter and he beds her.

He takes her mind deeper and body longer than he's ever done before. Michael feels half-crazed in it, delighting in each kiss, push and adoring touch he gives her. He holds her when she's limp and sated and nuzzles her face.

What more would you have for us Michael? Let me see.

Fully submerged and lax into the meld she dreams before him. A life of exploration, service and kids. Growing old on Lutonia VI, published journals and grandkids. Days of friendly rivalry and nights of untempered love. Spock raptly absorbs it all and replaces for them in a moment by moment play back. Michael lives in each imagined day stunned with amazement. She savors each and every one until her figmented end.

The wall of her cabin aboard Discovery comes back into view. Michael blinks at it before her knees buckle out from under her. Strong arms catch her from falling completely as Spock's hook underneath her.

Her labored breathing feels ineffectual, like a fish gasping at the dry, thinness of air. Spock seems equally affected with his strength somewhat wan as he draws her up against his chest. Michael clasps her arms around him as best she can and closes her eyes against the torrents welling up behind them.

His hand moves up from under her arm and comes to rest on the crown of her head. A lifetime. He gave the gift of one together with him and her together in the meld. Nothing in her can form what she feels about possessing such a treasure. That she received it from him of Spock's own want and volition makes it even more precious.

" You are the one that is precious." he croons softly above her. He drags his hand down, smoothing his fingers over the fragile, wooly curls there and sighs as if delighting in them all over again. " You are Vulcan's first and only angel and my guardian."

A choking sob leaves her and he shushes her and pulls her tighter. " Don't Michael. You have no need to cry. I am here with you now. Right beside you. Always for you. My red angel."

In true quarrels fashion she cries anyways and in the true sentiment of love he lets her. He tilts her head up by her chin and kisses at her cheeks as the culmination of all their shared emotions drain out of her and her crying slows into hiccuping sniffs.

After a minute Spock takes her mouth against hers again for what they will learn will be the last time. Michael's half gloved hand goes to his face and tries desperately to sort the mess of her heart's declaration. They do not have much time. Alarms are blaring with a chorus of warning sirens. He's looking at her to hear any and everything she wishes to say. Her bright eyes are fully open to the depth of her and Spock can see inside her without the meld. There's a bond churning between them whether she knows it or not. Neither human or Vulcan, just theirs.

Michael cups her fingers against his face and let's her face open further to him. It's the most human Spock has ever seen her since she arrived at his home some twenty years ago. He leans into her palm and exhales slowly in awe of it. She is completely herself with him and for him. There's no doubt in his logic-led mind that Michael loves him with everything she is. " Michael."

A whispered I love you in Vulcan manages to leave his mouth and she looks as if she might cry all over again. " Spock. I-"

"- Lieutenant Spock. Commander Burnham. Report to engineering immediately. Assistance on the suit's replication and production are needed."

Michael's lip quivers as she fights with the need to report and the desire to stay and finish what is still unsaid. Spock saves her from having to choose by speaking for them both. " We are on our way."

Gone is the tender reflection of her Spock and in its place the budding starfleet officer who's earned her admiration. " Let's go."

She does because they have a plan now. They will open the wormhole, travel through time and save everything that can think for itself. Ash is gone, they're parents stuck here and they will be free to make their meld reality. Michael runs and Spock is at her heels to see the task done.

" Stay in my wake." he tells her before they depart and for once she does as he instruct

" You have so much more to give."

He swallows thickly, human and Vulcan emotion threatening to consume him. He sits in the inoperable shuttle feeling impotent as Michael stands outside ready to save the known universe without him. He had been surprised by how pained he became in telling her he could not follow her and shocked that it could double at the sight of her crestfallen face. He had failed her but he would not have it keep Michael from her goal. He could never keep his aid from her. Or his love. " I do not wish to. Not to just anyone."

She nods understanding and visibly fights to compose herself. Time is relative but it is always short for lovers. " I know, Spock. Me neither. But you have to promise me to never have that precious part of who you are get locked away forever. You need to stay open, keep reaching." _-towards love. Please find love - even if it means it's without me_

The words wound him with a hollow ache at his side. Without her? No.

He does not wish to keep reaching. He does not want to stay open. He wants to stay with her. He wants what they had in the meld. He does not wish to loose her. Without her?

Fear grips his throat and his voice falters as he speaks to her again. " Will you -" he was going to ask for her to come back but he cannot bring himself to ask. If she's trapped with no way back she'll be stuck with a promise left unfulfilled and festering. He blinks hard and tries again. " How will I know you have safely arrived to your destination point?"

Michael stand in front of his ship staring through the window. She only twenty feet away but she's already beyond Spock's reach. _I have lost her _he thinks mournfully as he stares back at her lovely face. _It was already goodbye with the sighting of the signals and the future of it has finally arrived _. Dr. Burnham's sad smile comes back to his mind in a haunting foreshadow. _She knew that what we had would not last but she lead me to believe there would be a chance so I would not grieve Michael early. So I would love her fully in the present._

For the first and last time Spock finds himself hating the banality of space. Its uninhabitable sphere bars him from the intimate departure he yearns to have. Michael, of all people, does not deserve a paltry farewell of words. Not from him, not with what they've shared. " Michael?"

She gives the same smile her mother gave him in the record logs and his whole being aches. " I'll send a signal. A seventh one. Just for you so you'll know."

She sniffs at the water running from her nose and shakes her head. " I don't want to lose you again."

Spock narrows his eyes to keep from joining her sorrow and shakes his head. " You never lost me. And- as far as I am concerned-" his voice leaves him and he starts again. " - you never will."

The bond between them pulls at them like a tether- drawing them both to silence. Michael closes her eyes at the sensation with a hand tightening at her side. Spock reaches out and caresses her through it as best as he encourages her on her way. That he does so with a sane mind and spirit makes him unsure that he actually is sane. Why would he let _her go _?" You- Michael, I am sorry."

She cries openly now, understanding but stricken by their plight. " Don't apologize. I know you would come if you could."

He stares at her wide-eyed and in near shock as he tries to absorb every moment they have left. " Thank you Michael, for letting me find myself with you. And letting me see and love who you are."

High Vulcan leaves his lips soon after, a proclamation of devotion so saccharine that both their tears flow freely now.

Michael takes the fist at her side slowly over her heart and nods. " I love you too, brother." - _Spock, I love you too. Forever and a lifetime._

And one minute, fifty two seconds later she was gone.

His medical evalu comes back clear with the exception of a few lacerations but he feels crippled. His mother visited him early on after his review before Starfleet's internal affairs bureau.

She assures him it is normal to hurt but he will be okay but even she does not seemed convinced. Spock felt her, still feels Michael but he cannot find her because she is literally stuck beyond him. At least he assumes she's stuck.

Maybe she is still arriving. Maybe for her, the wormhole has just begun and she has seen the whole of his life and those after him flash before her eyes. Has she seen his life a hundred times, a hundred ways, with a hundred different beloveds? Spock hopes she has not. He is not ready, nor does he want to be. He wants her.

Four months and sixteen days have seen Spock staring out of the portholes of Enterprise with nothing but stars to show for it.

As much as duty can afford him, he works in departments with a view out beyond the gray hull. Observation deck ten becomes his space for recreation and his cabin's porthole remains open. He stands and waits with a wounded look of anticipation.

Will it be today? Perhaps he will find the image of crimson blazing brightly at the planet closest to them through his sensor arrays' viewscreen. Maybe he will wake and see her smiling down at him with the joy of her return.

Maybe. Perhaps. He hopes. So he waits.

On the one hundred and forty second day that passes Spock pauses before the mirror.

Do you really think that beard is working for you?

He runs his hands over it as he had in that moment and decides then it does not. She would tease him for being too sensitive and shaving it off but he knows she would approve of his clean-shaven face. She would approve of his science blues over his Vulcan robes. She would approve of him reporting for duty. And more than, Michael, found human, made friend, first love would be proud that Spock chose to get back up, move forward and reach out, even though it hurt.

Because she loved him. And he loves her.


End file.
